


Date Night

by Meredydd



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock - Fandom, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 06:17:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7255876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meredydd/pseuds/Meredydd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard McCoy wants to go home. Molly Hooper wants to move on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Date Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afteriwake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/gifts).



Three months in, by Earth reckoning, and he was finally feeling something akin to relaxed. He knew that it was a false sense of security, that, at any moment, he could find Zer hiding in plain sight, face one of the Federation's most gruesome enemies, but for now... for now, there was bitter-sour beer and reasonably pleasant music (he had to fight himself not to refer to it as 'classical' when it was clearly current to the young doctors and nurses swaying and bopping at the holiday party). And there was Doctor Hooper, who had laughed at his confusion over the telephone thingy in her office, and gently mocked his tendencies towards talking at computers, or expecting vending machines to dispense his order without being paid in grimy coins first. “I didn't think America was _that_ different,” she'd teased the first time she found him glaring at the coffee machine on the third floor. “Here, allow me. My treat, a welcome aboard present,” she'd added with a laugh. Her cheeks had been pink and her hair falling out of a crown of braids. It made him think of medical school, of being only vaguely aware of the Federation's politics and more interested in what the plans were for the weekend and dreams of his own practice after an internship. She had left him there, cup of too-sweet, too-watery coffee in hand, rushing to join another doctor he only vaguely recognized.

McCoy had an inkling, then, that he might be in a bit of trouble (more than he already was). He quashed that thought—he didn't have time for flirtation, even if he knew how to manage one. And he doubted a nice young woman like Molly Hooper would be interested in him. Even if he wasn't going to vanish one day (hopefully soon), even if she wasn't going to be long dead before he was even born.

He dragged his attention back to the present ( _ha_ , he thought, _present_...) as the music changed to something jangly and discordant, with rapid lyrics and a heavy bass line. He recognized it only vaguely and it took a moment to realize it had been played, in a much different form, at his wedding. He barely managed to swallow a chuckle, imagining what his ex wife would say if she knew that damn song she'd insisted on was one that originated as... He looked up from his beer and felt his eyes go wide at the sight before him. “Apparently, the song is some sort of mating call,” he murmured, the grinding and swaying bodies before him making his cheeks heat uncomfortably. “Good gods, people... we have to work together on Monday!”

“Speak for yourself,” Molly said from somewhere near his shoulder. “I'm on call all weekend. The only person I'm working with Monday is Mr. Sandman.” She reached past him and grabbed a handful of pretzels from the bar. “Missed dinner,” she said, looking only a little embarrassed. “Sorry.”

“No need,” he said, surprised to hear how rough his voice sounded. She glanced up at him quickly and popped a pretzel into her mouth. “I... I don't usually  _do_ parties,” he admitted. _Understatement of the millennium_ , the memory of Kirk's voice muttered in his head.

“Me, either. I... I made a resolution, last year, that I'd be more social.” She looked at the handful of pretzels and frowned. “This is the first time I've been out since New Year's. Unless you count my sister's wedding. And her husband's arrest.”

“New Year's... that's January first. This is...” he thought hard, his brain still trying to run on ship time and star dates. “This is December sixth.”

“Go me. Meeting my goals, actualizing, dovetailing and facilitating, all the buzz words.” She dumped the pretzels back into the bowl and sighed. “I was going to slip out of here soon. There's a good curry shop down the way, if you're interested.” Her cheeks went from pink to worryingly read, a shade that spread own her neck and up to her ears.

McCoy looked back at the heaving mass of humanity on the dance floor, the beer in his hand, then shrugged. “Sure. I've never had Earth curry.” He froze, hearing what he said, waiting for her to notice.

Molly's laugh was sharp and bright. “Then I'm proud to be the first to offer,” she said, a shade breathless. “Come on, we can slip out before Mona notices and tries that damned mistletoe dangler again.”

McCoy let Molly lead him through the edge of the crowd, past the coat check where she claimed a puffy jacket that reminded him of cold weather uniform gear for the geologists on Federation ships, and out to the surprisingly crowded street. It was only a bit after nine, he realized, seeing the flashing green face of a clock in the shop across the way. Early by Earth standards. People moving in rivers and threads to their destinations, dividing around him and Molly as if the pair of them were stones in the water. She stood for a long minute, eyes half closed, face turned up towards stars no one could see, and she breathed deeply. He was witnessing an intimate moment, he thought, something private between her and the sky, and he didn't know if she realized she was doing it. Just when the minute ticked over into two, into 'too long', she dropped her chin and smiled at him. “Now, Doctor McCoy, do you like spicy food? Or mild? There's no shame in admitting you like mild,” she added, turning away and walking with the brisk, measured pace of a city-dweller that was the same in any century.

He caught up in a few long strides, narrowly dodging a glaring tourist (also the same in any century). “I'm not much for fancy,” he said, part of him he thought long dead lurching to laugh and smacking him about the hemispheres for sounding like such a crotchety old man. _I can't change what I am_ , he snarled to his mental do-gooder.  _Go back to sleep. I'll wake you on Doomsday.  
_

“Good,” she said, her smile still there, dimpling her cheeks. “I don't get paid enough to do fancy, anyway.” She stopped in front of a brightly lit shop and pulled the door wide. “This place isn't fancy, but the food is amazing.”

McCoy... enjoyed it. He hated to admit it, if only because part of him felt guilty for having fun while on a mission (even if the mission was 'don't get caught, don't let Zer find you before you find him, try not to think about how far from home you really are'). Molly was funny, a bit more reserved than he was used to but he noticed that faded quickly once he began replying and not just grunting or nodding in response to whatever she said. He remembered his cover perfectly, and was grateful to whatever god of juvenile delinquents watched over James T. Kirk for providing him with such a thorough background for his cover when Molly began to ask questions about his own background. He was glad (and chose not to examine why) that he didn't have to lie to her much. He was still from Georgia, still a doctor, still specialized in internal medicine. Now, though, instead of expertise in xenobiology, he said he had experience in rare diseases. Instead of the Enterprise and Federation, he had moved to Bart's from a government position overseas. Molly nodded slowly as he spoke, and he wondered if she believed him and was rapt, or if she thought he was lying and just afraid to call him on it. “This is good,” he said around a mouthful of the sweet, light curry she had ordered for him. “I don't think I'd ever be able to find it back home.”

“Surely they have curry in Georgia,” Molly chided. “The States aren't that isolated and backwards as to lack international cuisine.” She plucked a bright red pepper from her own food and ate it with relish, even though it made sweat pop out on her brow as she chewed. “You're an odd man, Doctor McCoy. And I know many odd men, so I feel I'm quite qualified in making that statement.”

He tried and failed to hide a grin when she drained half her glass of lassi in two large gulps. “Pepper hotter than expected?”

“Hush. I was trying to be smooth and misjudged.” She was red again, but he didn't know if it was from embarrassment or the pepper.

He found it charming.

Damn it.

“I'm odd, eh? How so? Because I'm American?” He kept his tone even, neutral, but his heart had begun to trot instead of walk. _She lives in a world before first contact. Space travel is still largely theoretical, and the way I live is the stuff of children's stories for her. Get your shit together, Bones. She doesn't know._

“Mmmm. No, that's not it.” She was looking at him thoughtfully, intensely. Her hair was loose and she used it to hide behind as she ducked her face away, once she realized she'd been caught staring. Busying herself with rearranging her silverware, she said, “You just ping odd to me. Like... you don't fit.”

“Ah...”

“Oh, blast, that's... that's not coming out at all how I intended!” She looked up again, lips crimped in an annoyed moue. “I'm sorry. I... I'm not very good at people. I try to be, and I have fits and starts of being able to do it, but I always put my foot in it. Ugh, at least Sherlock isn't here!” She was tearing her napkin apart, bits of confetti landing on her almost-empty plate. “I always get...smaller around him. Like I forget that I'm a grown woman.”

“Ah. This...Sherlock. A boyfriend?” _Smooth, Bones. Real smooth._

Molly's laugh was bright and sharp. “Thank God, no! That... that would have been awful. Five years ago me would have loved the very thought, but thankfully, five years ago me doesn't get to make my decisions anymore.” She pushed her late aside and shook her head. “I just... acted foolish around him for a long time. And sometimes he likes to remind me of that fact.”

“Sounds like a real charmer.” _Sounds like an ass._   McCoy began twisting his own napkin then, for want of something to do with his hands. If left to his own devices, he was realizing with no small amount of chagrin, he would be reaching for Molly's hand where it rested on the table, maybe running his thumb over her knuckles, asking if she wanted to walk some, see the sights. _Get yourself together, man! This is a distraction! A very pretty one, that smells like some kind of flowers and who can crack open an adult rib cage with surprising grace. And for crying out loud, when did that become a turn on? You need to get yourself some help, soon as you're back home!_

“He had his moments,” she said, shrugging. “Enough on him, though. Care to take a—damn!” She sat up straight and grabbed at her hip, producing her phone from her trouser pocket after a second's fumble. “Of course it's work,” she sighed. “I'm sorry. But you know how it is,” she said, a tired chuckle escaping as she gathered her purse and coat.

He rose with her, dropping some bills on the table over her protest. “You get it the next time,” he said, finding himself smiling in spite of himself.

Her flurry paused. “Next time?”

“Um. Yeah. Next time. If... if that's something you'd like.”  _Shut up shut up shut up!_

“I'd love it.” Her phone buzzed again and she rolled her eyes. “You don't have to leave just because I am. They have lovely desserts here!”

“Nonsense. At least let me walk you to a...a cab.” He mentally patted himself on the back for getting the archaic word right when she didn't give him a weird look the way she'd done when he called her phone a tricorder his second day in the morgue.

“It's not far,” she demurred. “I'm just going to walk.”

“A gentleman never lets his companion walk back to work alone at night.”

“Is that a rule?”

“If I say it is, would you believe me?”

She shook her head, but was grinning as they stepped out into the cold night. “If I say yes, we can call it your Christmas gift.”

He smiled, reminding himself to research this era's holiday celebrations more thoroughly. Christmas was something he remembered only vaguely from childhood, a quaint observance his grandparents would trot out in the winter. If he thought hard enough, he could remember the traditions that were part of it for them, remember the taste of something sweet on his tongue, a whispered promise of sugared nuts and boiled sweets if he was good, don't tell mother, she wouldn't approve. Molly was chattering about the morgue, about Bart's itself, and part of him thought that maybe he should be listening—his cover was good, but more detail wouldn't hurt, especially nit picky things like which washroom had the faulty sink or how many nurses Doctor Bledsoe had dated at once before she got caught out. Instead, he let her voice wash over him and let her lead him again, this time down a few dark side streets and through a courtyard before reaching another busy road. She had stopped talking and, though the silence was not unpleasant, it was letting him think too much, and if he followed that trail, he'd end up in a dark place again. He wanted, for the evening anyway, to just pretend he wasn't stuck, his mission wasn't FUBAR, and that Molly was someone he might could see as a possible companion, not as a ghost once he finally made it back home. “I never understood what constitutes an emergency at a morgue anyway,” he finally said to break the quiet. The light changed and they fast-walked over the zebra stripes, Molly shooting him a curious, slightly bemused, expression. “I mean, it's not like they're going anywhere, is it? Dead is dead is dead. They'll be there in the morning.”

“Dead is dead is dead, but sometimes dead is weird is dead,” Molly said. She sounded, McCoy thought, like someone who had seen far more weird than they were comfortable admitting. “If Soams is calling me in, it means that dead is weird and dead is possibly messy and needs another set of eyes and hands to stuff it back in a body bag.”

“I miss general practice,” McCoy sighed. “Have a bandage, take this pill, hold still for this injection... Nothing dead. Usually.” They were nearing Bart's and Molly's steps were slowing as she fished for her work badge in her purse. “Corpses are so unsettling here. They just lay there. No way to tell what happened to 'em until you cut them open.” He still wanted to tongue-kiss whomever invented the medical tricorder once he returned home. He'd never take it for granted again.

“How on earth did you end up in the morgue, hating it like you do?” Hurt bled into Molly's question even as she tried to force a smile on her face.

“Don't fake-nice, Doctor Hooper,” he chided.

“Molly.”

“Don't fake-nice, Molly. It doesn't help you at all.” Her glare was sharp and angry, but it was gone nearly as quickly as it had appeared. “All pretending to be nice does is make people think you're a doormat.”

“So I should be an arse?” she demanded, jamming her card against the security scanner. “Say the first thing that pops into my head when it comes to people? Because, Doctor McCoy, I can guarantee you that it's usually quite snide and not at all kind. Underneath these sensible jumpers is the heart of a...a...” she trailed off before she could name herself. “Well. Thank you, Doctor McCoy. Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

“Aw, Molly. Doctor Hooper... Molly?”

“Molly,” she sighed. “Molly is still fine.”

“Molly, don't put words in my mouth. I'm not saying you are a doormat, just don't give people the chance to treat you like one.”

“You've worked here three months, Doctor McCoy, and in that time you've barely spoken to me except to express confusion at every day machines, mutter about guts and viscera... I had a bit of a hope, earlier, than maybe you liked me a bit, the way we were talking. Was it just because I'm nice, then? I'm nice and you were bored?”

“Good God,” he grunted, shoving the beeping security door open and giving her a small shove inside. “Let's just start over, yeah? Okay. I'm working in the morgue because my best friend has a sick sense of humor.”

Molly stopped in her tracks, frowning at him as he strode ahead. “What? How does that make you end up working in the morgue?”

“Long story short, he's the one who, uh, encouraged me to be a pathologist.”

“That sounds like a load of crap.”

McCoy smirked down at her as he pushed open the door to the morgue proper. “After you, milady.”

Molly opened her mouth to speak, but it snapped close the moment she saw the morgue. “Oh my God!”

Blood was everywhere. Literally everywhere. McCoy had never seen so much blood in one place, not even after the Incident involving the academy flight students and the prop wash on the training speeder. “Stay back,” he snapped, shoving her behind him as he shoulder his way into the room. “Zer,” he breathed. “It's Zer.”

Molly was shaking hard, her teeth rattling with it as she ducked past him, slipping in the gore. “Wait, wait, wait,” she muttered. “Wait. We...we can't be in here. We're contaminating the scene. Damn it, Greg, why did you have to retire and fuck off to Weston Super Mare with Mycroft?” She was fumbling in her bag, searching for her phone, when she froze and raised a shaking finger somewhere towards McCoy's left. “That... that's not...”

He didn't have to look. He knew. Zer. Zer, who had destroyed entire races, mouthful by mouthful. Zer, who was many and one. The reason McCoy was stranded on Earth, stranded centuries out of time. He turned, careful in the blood, and faced the hulking shape that seemed to be made of shadow and bone. “Was wondering when you'd show up. You broke my ship.”

“I should've known you were an alien,” Molly muttered, voice thin and high. “Friend of yours?”

“I'm not an alien,” McCoy snapped back. “I'm one hundred percent human, born on Earth, in Georgia, just like I told you. And this son of a bitch is nobody's friend.” Zer was unfolding, spreading out, seeking the living flesh it craved. “It's a science project gone wrong,” he snarled, edging back, taking Molly with him. “Part human DNA, part nanobots, part...whatever the Hell they get up to on Remus in their tiny little labs.” The door swung closed between them and it, but McCoy didn't stop moving. “I need you to run, Molly, do you understand?”

“Like Hell,” she shot back. “I'm not going to let you get...get...whatever it is that thing does!”

“It was initially created to consume biologic waste. Someone got to tinkering with things, though, figuring they could make a bigger and badder weapon, one that could take out entire armies without leaving a trace.”

“There's a lot of trace left in there,” Molly pointed out, the blood pooling under the door. The dark shape of Zer was oozing closer to the viewing glass, faceless but with the distinct impression of looking at them.

“It's not perfect,” McCoy shrugged, voice ragged. “I have one shot at this, Molly, and I need you out of the way, do you understand?” She nodded, moving back. “This,” he pulled a small, cigar-shaped device from his coat pocket, “will nullify the nanobots and leave just the biologic materials. If it works.”

“If? If!”

“It's not like we could test it before they shoved us off to chase this bastard all over Hell's half acre!” It seemed to be SOP under Kirk, really, McCoy admitted to himself (not for the first time). He should hate it—most of him did—but a tiny part of him, the part that felt sharply alive as he brandished the neutralizer, loved it. _And no one will ever get me to admit that to that smug bastard's face.  
_

Zer didn't so much open the door as push through them, moving through microscopic cracks and crevices until it was in the corridor. Molly gasped, sliding down the wall and scooting back towards the lift, her voice a thin reed of sound as she called out to McCoy. He couldn't let himself hear her, forcing himself to stand still, not to run, as Zer moved closer, looming and swallowing the light in its dark shape. “Here we go,” McCoy muttered, twisting the end of the device and swinging it down as a round, black mass swept towards him from Zer's midsection. Nothing happened, not for ten whole seconds. McCoy tasted bile and copper, wondered if he would die with dignity or if he was about to lose control of every remaining bodily function he had. Then, without so much as a sound as a _feeling_ of a concussion of air, Zer spread out, arching over McCoy, then hissed into shining, silver light, and was gone.

Mostly.

“I am covered in something that smells like rotten cabbage and _C. diff_. ,” Molly said from her spot on the floor. “And I am going to vomit.”

McCoy nodded. “Go right ahead. I'll... I'll join you in a minute.”

Molly obliged, politely ill into the nearest trash bin, and shakily rose to her feet. “Doctor McCoy,” she managed, “I... thank you for the interesting evening, but I need to go home now. Alone. And...and just be.”

He nodded, sinking to the floor, wondering what the Hell to do next.

***

Discretion is the better part of valor, someone once said, and McCoy decided it was most valorous to get the Hell out of Dodge before security arrived. He made his way out of Bart's via the maintenance stairwell and picked his way across back streets to the tiny flat he had managed to finagle with the cover Kirk had created for him. The only things that mattered, he could carry on his person, hidden in pockets. Everything else had been someone else's, somewhere else's. He shed his gore-covered clothes and scrubbed himself down in the strange little Earth shower that spit water and smelled of eggs. His uniform would be conspicuous on it's own, but a coat could hide the most obvious bits. He dress quickly and shoved the neutralizer, spent now, his broken tricorder, and the long-quiet data link that had been in his pocket since he crashed into the chalky fields somewhere east and south. He froze at the door, realizing that he had no idea where Molly lived, no idea how to find her before (if) she went in to work again. “Shit...”

_Come on, Spaceman. You've heard of the internet. Archaic but useful. C'mon, think it through._

He was really starting to hate Kirk's voice in his head.

***

Molly didn't seem surprised to see him. She was still shower-damp, smelling of flowers again and something sweet, like candy or liquor. She opened her door, sighed, and stood aside so that he could enter. “I need to tell you the truth,” he said without preamble, taking up a spot on her small sofa. Toby, geriatric guardian that he was, hopped onto the coffee table and hissed at him. “Yeah, well, feeling's mutual, tribble breath.”

“Be nice to my cat,” Molly said in a small, tired voice. She scooped up Toby and sat in an awkward twist in the nearby armchair, her legs tucked under her as if she were expecting to need to bounce up like a spring at any given moment. “Tonight has been one of the most traumatic nights of my life,” she said. “And I've had a lot of traumatic nights. So whatever you are about to tell me needs to be good, fast, and true, or I will call my friend at the Yard and they will come arrest you.”

“For being from the future?”

Molly set Toby down gingerly and unfolded her legs. “Right. That's what you're leading with?”

He shrugged out of his coat, revealing his uniform. “My name is Doctor Leonard McCoy. I'm was born here on Earth, in 2227, in Georgia. I work on a ship called Enterprise as a physician and,” he paused, smirking faintly, “one of the people who tries to keep our captain on a leash.”

“I hope that's a metaphor...”

“Usually,” he sighed. “This story is going to be very long, Molly, but you need to know how it ends first. Soon, I'm not sure when but it will be sooner rather than later, my people will come for me. My ship is broken beyond any repair I can do, but it's been sending out a beacon since the crash three months ago. I was one of five people sent to find Zer, and my shuttle locked onto his trace as he went through an anomaly. I was pulled with him. As far as I know, my companions were not bough over. There's been no sign of them. I used a false identity created by my friend and captain, massaged a bit to fit what I knew of this time. And I've been waiting. Tonight... well. You were there. I completed the mission objective. Now, I just need to wait for them to come take me home.”

“Oh.”

Molly was quiet for a long time. So long, McCoy thought that maybe she had fallen asleep, twisted back into her pretzel-shape on the chair. Finally, he called her name softly and she looked up at him.

“I have the worst luck with men,” she said quietly. “Sherlock is... Sherlock, Greg and Mycroft found one another, Tom... found every woman between here and Lyme Regis...” She scrubbed her face with her palms and let out a shuddering breath. “I really hate this.”

“Molly...”

“No, Doctor McCoy--”

“Leonard,” he corrected softly. “Or... or Bones.”

“Like the telly program?”

“Um...”

She snorted. “Right. Well. Leonard. I liked you. I like you. A lot. And I'd... oh, God, this is so pathetic. I had hoped that maybe you liked me, too. I don't have a lot in my life these days. Toby, work, and that's about it. My friends have all married and moved on, Sherlock and John have retired down to Sussex since John's accident, and now...” she let out a choked laugh. “Oh my God. Tonight, I saw an alien. And whatever happened in the morgue. And I am so fucking sacked.”

He smiled, then, unable to stop himself, laughed. “I'm not laughing at you,” he promised when she glared. “It's just... it sounds a lot like one of my days.”

She shook her head. “Well, it's official. I give up on dating.”

“Well,” he said slowly, “maybe... maybe we can give it a try while I wait?”

“Then what? I wave good bye when the flying saucer shows up and you zip off to Barbarella and I stay here and pine?”

“You're going to pine?”

“Hush. It's hypothetical!”

He rubbed his sweaty palms on his trousers and looked at her across the small living area, feeling almost more nervous than he had facing Zer. “I was thinking we might try spending some time together. I mean, we're both probably fired because there's no way in Hell to explain that mess in the morgue. And maybe.. if we decide we like one another... you might, I don't know... come back with me,” he said the last part in a rush, knowing how ridiculous it sounded, even to his ears.

Molly's incredulous expression told him that she thought the same thing.

“Well,” he sighed. “It was just an idea.”

“I have some money saved up,” she said suddenly, before he could get up, “and I think it'd be a good idea to travel for a bit, see the world, before you go haring off back to...wherever. Whenever.”

“Oh?”

“I mean, how are they going to get in touch with you? Is it... like email or something?”

He held out his data link. “This should activate whenever it detects the right signal. It'll act like a beacon to them and they'll come to me, wherever I am.”

“Ah.” She smiled then, slow and sweet. “Leonard, I would love to get to know you better. Have you ever been to Spain?”

“I've heard good things,” he said, lying through his teeth. He only had a vague memory of Spain being a place to visit, but judging by Molly's smile, it was somewhere lovely.

“I think I just asked you to run away with me,” she said, laughing nervously, giddily.

“Well, to be fair, I asked you first.”

“Yeah, but in my version, I can still come back home if we decide we hate one another.” She paused, looking at him fretfully. “I'm sorry. That was rude.”

“Nah,” he said, leaning back in his seat, spreading his arms along the back of the sofa. The data link was back in his pocket, waiting. He knew it wouldn't be long—James Tiberius Kirk would see to that. “It was honest.”

She huffed a laugh. “I can't believe this. Okay. Well. I guess... in the morning, I find out if I'm really fired or not, and we buy tickets for Spain. Have you ever been on a plane? Oh, what am I thinking! You zip around on a space ship all day in your real life...”

He didn't have the heart to stop her as she rattled on. Instead, he closed his eyes and let it move through him and over him. In his pocket, the data link vibrated, and he smiled. Kirk knew where he was now. _The bastard can wait another few days,_ he thought. _I need a vacation._

 


End file.
